Dear Readers and Authors of Pandora Press,
It’s always a pleasure to report to those who follow our small publishing company that things are going well, that we are releasing many new books, and that exciting things are on the horizon. I’ll start with a list of our book series, followed by some updates on our upcoming expansion in infrastructure, and then a teaser of our books being published this month.
Pandora Press is a big tent, and we publish a number of different book series, each with their own norms, standards, styles, and audiences. Right now, we have somewhere in the area of 20 book series, described below with links out to the Amazon pages where our books are most effectively purchased:
- New Mennonite Literatures (a brand new imprint for high-quality literary works connected to Mennonite thought and culture, connected to the Mennonite/s Writing conference series and launching this month with three new volumes).
- Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies (New Series) (our flagship academic series, held to the highest scholarly standard of quality, featuring translated work by established European scholars and forthcoming monographs by a new generation of Anabaptist historians, currently at 17 volumes, and set to double in number in the next few years).
- New Mennonite Reflections (our popular series for memoirs, fiction, and reflection on Mennonite thought and culture, with two important books released this year: Lineage by Dion Martens, and Search for a Blessing: A Gay Man’s Journey from a Mennonite Missionary Childhood to the Streets of AIDS Activism by Daniel E. Shenk with Joyce Maxwell – recently reviewed in Anabaptist World.
- New Anabaptist and Mennonite Theologies (a growing series that features sharp, new, scholarly and public theology in the Anabaptist and Mennonite traditions, with two new books on Menno Simons due out before the end of the year, joining Christian Scheidegger’s Revolutionaries of Faith, and David Driedger’s Nothing Will Save Us).
- Global Mennonite History (Five volumes of essential Mennonite history, now back in print! See here for a detailed press release).
- Spiritual Care (Seven volumes of essential work on spiritual care for pastors, chaplains, and professionals, with new volumes on MAID and leadership out now!).
- Forthcoming Titles (at least 30 new books in preparation in the coming two years!)
- Recent Titles (Our titles since 2021, including Anabaptist Meditations, Dirk Willemszn: Son of Asperen, Hope is our Deliverance, Making Wars Cease, Menno in Athens: A Novel, The Way Back Home, Theatre, Peace, Justice, and These Songs We Sing volume 1 and volume 2…)
- pandora poetica (our series for poetry and existential reflection, with six volumes on meaning and hope in our time and a novel called Solarium by Edinburgh writer Braden Matthew)
- Anabaptist History and Theology (titles surrounding the essential text by Arnold Snyder which began Pandora Press in the mid-1990s).
- Mennonite Central Committee Series (a forthcoming collaboration…).
- Bridgefolk: Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue (the classic Mennonite-Catholic dialogue series, now collected in a single anthology!).
- Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies (Original Series) (with foundational theological texts by theologians like A. James Reimer and Harry Huebner, and historians like Michael Driedger and Astrid von Schlachta).
- Mennonite Reflections (Original Series) (15 volumes of memoir and reflection on Mennonite life).
- Wedel Series (Bethel College) (A new distribution arrangement with Bethel College for the enriching book series that springs from the Wedel lectures, with important books by Sjouke Voolstra and Alain Epp Weaver)
- International Relations in East Asia (a new social-scientific series, with a second volume on the way…)
- Cascadia Classics (a new collaboration to bring the Cascadia backlist into print with Pandora Press)
- Religion and Science (proceedings of the Goshen College series).
- Darrol Bryant Series (with a new memoir!).
- Baptist Heritage in Atlantic Canada ( an exciting forthcoming collaboration…)
Many other titles are available that don’t fit neatly into a series, but which remain important to our publishing programme, with gems like James Urry’s study of Russian Mennonite life, or Walter Klaassen’s classic book on Anabaptism. Luckily, our extensive backlist will soon become more searchable and accessible as we transition to a brand new website, courtesy of a generous donation by Abraham Friesen, designed by the extraordinary Anikó Szabó. If that were not enough, in 2027 Pandora Press will begin the slow process of expanding our distribution to bookstores through the University of Toronto Press Distribution services.
With a new site and broader reach, 2027 will be a big year for Pandora Press as we publish and promote: John Weier’s experimental novel Runaway, Andrew Harnish’s “smashing and golden addition to our field of Mennonite literature” (Casey Plett) The Second Reformation of Isaac Bowman, Warren Kliewer’s enchanting collection of Mountain Lake Stories called Becoming Memories, an anthology of the Mennonot zine with commentary essays, David Shannon’s national moral cartography and reflection on disability and endurance, Klaus Deppermann’s biography of Melchior Hoffmann, Harold S. Bender’s collected essays with commentary essays, and John M. Janzen’s Keeping Faith: Peter and Agathe Dyck’s Written Record from Prussia, Russia, and Kansas, 1869–1886.
New spiritual care titles have also just arrived from Nazila Isgandarova (Islamic Spiritual and Religious Care, 2nd Ed), Geoffrey Haber (“Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”: Interfaith Leadership in a Multifaith Context for Spiritual Care Practitioners and Psychospiritual Therapists ), and Pieter Post (Celebrating the End of Life Together: On the Sacred Dimension of Life’s End, profiled in the Christian Courier, Anabaptist World, and the Winnipeg Free Press).
Soon, Pandora Press will increase its presence online, so please follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and keep an eye out for many new titles in 2027.
Sincerely,
Maxwell Kennel
November 6, 2026
